The 2023-24 NHL season is fast approaching, with the puck dropping on regular season games less than two weeks from now. With that, it’s time we look at players who could rebound and regress from their 2022-23 campaigns. For this article, we’ll be focusing on players who could regress and how they could affect their teams this regular season.
Andrei Kuzmenko
Andrei Kuzmenko was a revelation for the Vancouver Canucks a season ago, finishing with 39 goals and 74 points in his first NHL season after coming over from the KHL. While he’s an excellent shooter and a plus finisher, there’s a good chance he will regress this coming season.
The Canucks should be an improved team, but Kuzmenko shot 27.3 percent while firing 143 shots on goal in 81 games last season. A 27.3 shooting percentage is highly unsustainable, especially with his shot rates. He averaged 3.76 high-danger chances per 60 minutes a season ago, and 14 of his 39 goals came via the power play.
Kuzmenko scored 17.08 goals above expected, so while he should still be productive if he regresses, he’s more likely to finish with around 20-25 goals if he generates shots at the rates he did a season ago.
Erik Karlsson
Erik Karlsson had one of the best seasons we’ve seen from a defenseman in a generation in 2022-23. He became the first blueliner to total 100 points in a season since Brian Leetch in 1991-92, helping him capture the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman for last season.
Unfortunately, that almost guarantees he will regress in 2023-24, even though he’s on a more competitive team in the Pittsburgh Penguins. Karlsson finished last season with 25 goals while shooting 12 percent, well above his career average of 6.9 percent. He’ll still hit double-digit goals this season, but 25 seems like a reach.
Even though Karlsson is highly likely to regress, there’s a good chance he’s still a very productive defenseman since he will log plenty of ice time with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and co. He’s still a good bet for around 70 points, meaning he’ll still have a significant positive impact on a Penguins team looking to return to the playoffs.
Linus Ullmark
The Boston Bruins won 65 games and totaled 135 points in the standings a season ago behind the strong play of Linus Ullmark in net. He finished with a .938 save percentage, helping him capture the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goalie for the 2022-23 season.
Aside from SV%, Ullmark’s underlying numbers were outrageous a season ago. He saved 42.4 goals above expected and 48.5 goals above average, career highs by a country mile. Like Karlsson, he’s essentially guaranteed to regress, especially on a Bruins team that no longer has David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron.
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But even though Ullmark is highly likely to come back down to Earth, he should be one of the better goalies in the league. He had a .916 SV% over his previous three seasons before 2022-23, which is well above the league average in 2023. That should help keep the Bruins in contention, but there’s no doubt points are coming off the board in the Atlantic Division standings.
Tyler Toffoli
The Calgary Flames struggled a season ago, but Tyler Toffoli was one of their standout players. He had the best season of his career, totaling 34 goals and 73 points in 82 games. Unfortunately for the Flames, he had no interest in re-signing long-term (he’s in the final year of his contract), leading them to trade Toffoli to the New Jersey Devils.
Shooting percentage is a great tool to determine whether a player will regress. But in Toffoli’s case, his 12.7 shooting percentage in 2022-23 was slightly above his 11.2 percent career average. Instead, we’ll look at goals above replacement (GAR), which better illustrates why he’s due for regression:
Toffoli’s GAR shot to the moon after two years of declining. His total GAR of 21.1 was a career-high, and when you see a player’s GAR shoot to the moon as it did a season ago, it means regression is likely. He also totaled a career-high 25 points on the power play; he had never totaled more than 12 in previous seasons.
Toffoli will still help the Devils and should produce around 25 goals and 55 points, closer to his career averages. There’s certainly room for more since it appears he’ll get plenty of ice time alongside Jack Hughes, but repeating what he did in Calgary in 2022-23 seems unlikely. And that’s fine if you’re the Devils because they don’t need that. They just need him to be close to what he’s done throughout his career.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has always been a reliable player for the Edmonton Oilers, but his game reached new heights in 2022-23. He finished with career-highs in goals (37), assists (67), and points (104). His shooting percentage skyrocketed to 18.4 percent, well above his 12.2 percent career average.
Nugent-Hopkins’ five-on-five scoring from a season ago was nothing out of the norm. He totaled 39 points at that game state and shot 13.68 percent. Where he made his money was on the power play, totaling an outrageous 53 points, thanks to playing on the Oilers’ first unit with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
Playing on a power-play unit with McDavid and Draisaitl always leaves the door open to being able to sustain some crazy scoring rates. But most of Nugent-Hopkins’ scoring on the man advantage came in the form of secondary assists (25) instead of primary assists (13). He also shot 25 percent on the power play, a career-high by a comfortable margin.
Nugent-Hopkins has been a solid power-play producer for the Oilers, averaging 30 points per 82 games on the man advantage over the previous four seasons. I’d expect his production to return closer to that level, even if he’s still cashing in on McDavid and Draisaitl’s work. And that will lead to a dip in his overall scoring totals.
Brayden Point
Did you know Brayden Point finished with 51 goals a season ago? That’s because he may have had the quietest 50-goal season of anyone in recent memory. Point has always been a highly productive top-six forward, but there’s good reason to believe he won’t reach 50-plus goals again.
Though he created plenty of quality scoring chances, Point shot a career-high 21.7 percent and scored 13.72 goals above expected in 2022-23. The Tampa Bay Lightning don’t need Point to be a 50-goal scorer to be a Cup contender, so they’ll be fine if he regresses to a 35-goal pace. But he will likely come back down to Earth from one of the quieter 50-goal campaigns we’ve seen recently.
Jamie Benn
Jamie Benn had a resurgent season in 2022-23 for the Dallas Stars, totaling 33 goals and 78 points in 82 games. That was his most productive year since 2017-18, when he finished with 36 goals and 79 points in 82 games.
I’ll admit that I was on the fence about including Benn on this list because there aren’t many factors that suggest he’ll regress. His individual point percentage of 63.93 percent was well in line with his career averages. And it’s not like he hasn’t produced 30-plus goals and 70-plus points in a season before.
But two things are working against him: age and, of course, shooting percentage. At 34 years old, can he repeat his 2022-23 season? He shot a career-high 17.4 percent and scored seven goals above expected. That’d still put him in line for 26 tallies, making him a highly productive player, but it does suggest he should regress.
The Stars don’t need much more than that from him since they’re one of the best teams in the Western Conference. Even if he puts up 20-25 goals and 50-plus points, there’s more than enough talent on the Stars roster to make them a Cup contender in the West, especially after signing Matt Duchene to a one-year deal in free agency.
Hampus Lindholm
Hampus Lindholm has always been one of the more underrated defensemen in the league, but he had quite the resurgence in his first full season with the Bruins in 2022-23. He finished with a career-high 53 points in 82 games, another reason why the team finished with 65 wins and 135 points.
Lindholm finished with a total GAR of 20.1 last season, the best of his career. Even during his best years with the Anaheim Ducks, his total GAR never eclipsed 15 and usually hovered just above 10. Most of his ice time came with Bergeron a season ago, and with Bergeron now retired, that’ll likely lead to fewer points for Lindholm.
He should still cash in a bit playing with Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, but with a weaker Bruins roster that will lose points in the standings, it may be difficult for Lindholm to total 50-plus points again, even if he’s still an elite top-pair defenseman, which he should be. There just might not be as much offense.
Alex Killorn
It was a bit of a surprise when the Ducks announced they had signed Alex Killorn to a four-year deal in free agency at a cap hit of $6.25 million. He’s coming off the best season of his career, totaling 27 goals and 64 points in 82 games. But like so many players listed in this article, he did so riding some crazy percentages.
Killorn finished the 2022-23 season with an 18.9 shooting percentage, the second-highest of his career. He has shown to be an above-average finisher since becoming an NHLer, but he’s also done it on a stacked Lightning team and playing with some of their top players. He likely won’t repeat shooting at that level this season, especially on a Ducks team significantly worse than the Lightning.
Killorn also scored 6.89 goals above expected at all strengths. That still would’ve made him a 20-goal scorer, and there’s still a decent chance he could be a 20-goal scorer for the Ducks. But given the change of scenery and that his five-on-five shooting percentage of 20.65 was the highest of his career, there should be a dip in his production.
Regression Doesn’t Guarantee Teams Faltering
It is getting more difficult to predict which players could regress in a league that’s becoming more offensively oriented. But there are still plenty of metrics and indicators that give us any idea of what players could produce less than their previous seasons. Some NHLers regressing will hurt their teams more than others (Ullmark, Kuzmenko), but most of the players listed here are on clubs good enough to withstand some of their top producers regressing.
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Advanced stats from Natural Stat Trick, Evolving-Hockey